This neighborhood, which doesn’t even have the official status of such, is London in miniature. We often overlook it, but if we stray two minutes from the chaos of Oxford Street, between Marylebone and Bloomsbury, we will find in it a compact snapshot of the city. There is literary and artistic heritage, a multicultural atmosphere, places to dine for 15 pounds and for twenty times as much, and gardens—secret and not-so-secret. And all that in only a few streets.
In Fitzrovia, fewer than ten thousand people live here, and the legend we choose to believe says that Lady Gaga is one of them. Virginia Woolf was another, and Charles Dickens, another. When you visit, please look for the blue plaques that mark their houses. Thank the former for A Room of One’s Own and the latter for changing our consciousness. And say “oh” when you discover that Bernard Shaw lived in the same building as Woolf a few years before her. Standing there, eyes on the façades and imagining their lives gives meaning to this stroll, this journey that is a true voyage.
Fitzrovia is highly walkable, very walkable. It’s interesting to explore it with eyes wide open, to notice the contrast between Georgian, Art Deco, and contemporary architecture. We’ll slip into Colville Place, one of those London alleys that makes us dream of living there and reminds us that London can also be coquettish. If you walk it to the end (you’ll take plenty of photos) you’ll reach a park. Sit there and read Great Expectations. You’re already part of Fitzrovia.
This neighborhood, not really a neighborhood, is visited for two basic purposes: romanticizing and eating. Both keep the myth-loving souls alive here, and there are many. The myth-making is fed on these streets. We keep searching for blue plaques. On Tottenham Street we find the plaque for the house of Charles Laughton and Elsa Lancaster. We’ll carry in our pocket, or just read, Ian McEwan’s Saturday, who lived on Fitzroy Square—what luck for the writer. Bob Dylan made his London debut at the King & Queen pub on Foley Street, and Coldplay formed at Ramsay Hall. On its streets two films were shot that we always want to rewatch, Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960) and The Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017). For such a small area its dose of pop culture is quite large.
